Abyss km-15

by David Hagberg

  “A half ton of dynamite, I suppose,” Defloria said. “Hurt it so badly that there’d be nothing left that was worth rebuilding. And I doubt if the company would be willing to supply Dr. Larsen with another platform.”

  “I don’t mean hurt it,” McGarvey said. “I mean how do we send it to the bottom of the Gulf with all hands aboard?”

  Defloria spread his hands, and shook his head. “I’ve never thought about it.”

  “What’s the most vulnerable structure aboard? The legs?”

  “If you released the high-pressure air and punched holes below the waterline, they’d flood, and the platform would settle to the surface. If a big sea was running, the waves would do a lot of damage, but the platform would probably still float.”

  “At least long enough for us to get everybody into the lifeboats,” Lapides said.

  They weren’t thinking like terrorists bent on destroying the rig, they were engineers working out how to save it. But McGarvey saw it. “What if we destroyed any two adjacent legs?”

  Defloria was thinking about it now, really thinking, and the conclusions he was drawing were extremely disturbing. He looked like a man who was lost, and was just beginning to realize it. “And you’re here to protect us?” he mumbled.

  “You have to think like them.”

  “Like who?” Defloria asked. He was angry but intimidated.

  “Would it sink?”

  “The platform would capsize. But it might not sink right away, not until the compartments in the superstructure flooded out. And even then there might be enough reserve buoyancy in the empty oil storage tanks and tool lockers to keep us afloat. But what would you do with the crew? Some of them would probably survive. Or would they be murdered?”

  “Is there a space that could be sealed that’s big enough to hold everybody?” McGarvey asked.

  “The crew’s mess,” Lapides said.

  “More reserve buoyancy,” Defloria said, but he looked sick.

  “Could it be flooded?”

  Defloria took a moment before he answered. “What kind of people are you talking about? Islamic terrorists? Nine/eleven fanatics, willing to die for the cause? I mean, this is nuts, isn’t it? Completely crazy?”

  Both he and Lapides were trying not to understand what McGarvey was asking for, it was perfectly clear from how they looked at him, and yet they knew. And it was obvious that they knew.

  “Two hatches, one from the main corridor and the other through the kitchen to the loading area at the rail,” Lapides said. “They could be spot-welded in place. And when Vanessa turned turtle the ventilation shafts would be underwater.”

  “Could someone swim out?”

  “Too far,” Defloria said. “And besides, the water would be rushing in. It would be like trying to swim against the stream of a fire hose.” He shook his head again. “They’d all die in there.”

  “Anything else?” McGarvey asked.

  “It would have to be done from aboard the platform. Unless they had a sub and fired a couple of torpedoes, it would be just about impossible to get close enough to plant explosives if there was even a small sea running.”

  “When do you get under way?” McGarvey asked.

  “We’re about done here, everything else we can finish en route,” Defloria said. “The tug will be heading out to us tomorrow, and Dr. Larsen has her news conference on Thursday. When that’s done we can get under way.”

  McGarvey hadn’t been told, but it was about what he should have expected. Eve and her people couldn’t think like a terrorist any more than Defloria or Lapides could. “I didn’t know about the media being here,” he said.

  “It was the company’s idea. Is there a problem?”

  McGarvey shook his head. “No.” On the contrary, he thought, because it was possible that his contractor would come aboard to look things over, and he had to suppress a little smile. Maybe the bastard would make a mistake after all.

  * * *

  Defloria gave McGarvey a hard hat and walked with him through the main pipe and cable corridor along the back of the platform directly beneath the superstructure. The sound of the wind was muted, but each time a wave broke against the windward legs the entire rig shuddered a little, and the racket of metal crashing on metal, of welding torches and cutting tools and the two large lifting cranes was practically deafening, so they had to shout to be heard.

  “You don’t paint a pretty picture.”

  “It’s just a precaution,” McGarvey said.

  Defloria was angry. “The thing I don’t get is why everyone is willing to risk our lives? It makes no sense. Are we being used as bait?”

  McGarvey wanted to tell him that there were bigger issues at stake, that the attack on Hutchinson Island, the assassination attempt in Oslo, and possibly one against this rig, were only three parts of something much larger. As long as oil was being pumped out of the ground and used as a major source of the world’s energy, experiments like Eve Larsen’s had to be stopped. Trillions of dollars were at stake.

  But Defloria’s questions had been rhetorical, and he pointed out a hatch at the end of the corridor. “Five flights up.”

  “You’re not in this alone,” McGarvey said.

  Defloria’s eyes were hard. “Somehow that doesn’t give me much comfort. And what do I tell my crew?”

  “Nothing for the moment.”

  * * *

  When McGarvey reached Eve’s lab on the fifth level the expansive space with wraparound windows was a beehive of frenetic activity. Most of the techs and postdocs were dressed in jeans and GFDL or NOAA sweatshirts, a few in khakis, and Don Price in white coveralls, and they were unpacking electronic equipment from the boxes and crates and aluminum cases and installing all of it in racks, or on four computer consoles that formed a broad U. Don was the first to spot him at the doorway. “He’s here,” he said.

  Eve, who’d been on her hands and knees behind one of the consoles got to her feet, the look of happiness, total joy, and contentment, maybe even a little excitement, dying a little when she saw him. She too was dressed in white coveralls, the knees dirty from crawling around on the deck.

  Some of the others had stopped what they were doing to look at the former CIA director who had twice been there to protect their scientist, most of them with curiosity, but a few of them, Don Price included, with resentment and perhaps fear.

  “Okay, listen up,” Eve said, coming around the console and laying down a screwdriver. “And that includes you, Lisa.”

  A few of her techs chuckled, but they stopped what they were doing.

  “For those of you who don’t know this gentleman, his name is Kirk McGarvey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who has been of some service to me. He’s here to help with security and I’d like you to listen to what he has to say.”

  “You’re busy, so I’ll only take a couple of minutes,” McGarvey said. “It’s likely that the Reverend Schlagel and some of his followers will stage some sort of a Greenpeace-type demonstration against your project.”

  “The hell with them,” someone said.

  “They might even try to get in our way, somehow stop us from reaching Florida. But I don’t think they’ll be very effective. This platform is just too big.”

  “Will they try to board us?” a young woman who’d been working at one of the computer consoles asked. “Like the Somali pirates?”

  “Not them,” McGarvey said, and it took several beats for the real meaning of what he’d just told them and its implications to sink in.

  Don Price started to protest, but Eve touched his sleeve. “Continue,” she said.

  “We believe that there are people other than some religious fanatics who don’t want this platform to reach Florida. They want to see your experiment fail.”

  “What people?” Don demanded, his anger spilling over.

  “We don’t know for sure,” McGarvey said. “But it’s possible they’re the same ones who attacked the Hutchinson Islan
d reactor.”

  “Speculation,” Don fumed, and Eve didn’t stop him from voicing his opinion. “What proof do you have?”

  “None,” McGarvey admitted. “But I’m hitching a ride with you across the Gulf just in case something does develop. I wanted you to know who I was and why I’m here.”

  “So now we know,” Don said. “Just get the hell out of here, we have a lot of work to do.”

  “Could I have a word with you?” McGarvey asked Eve.

  And before Don could object, she nodded and went with McGarvey out into the narrow space at the head of the steel stairs.

  “Sorry about Don. He can be overbearing sometimes.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” McGarvey said. “I’m interested in your news conference the day after tomorrow.”

  “Interested or concerned?”

  “Interested. Do you have list of the media people coming out?”

  “No. InterOil set it up, and it was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” Eve said. “Should I be worried?”

  And what was the answer? McGarvey wondered. By his nature he was, if not a worrier, a man who paid very strong attention to the details. Especially the ones he had no direct control over.

  He smiled. “No, that’s my job, remember?”

  Her smile was a little less certain, but she nodded. “You’re leaving now?”

  “Yes. But I’ll be back in time for your news conference.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  McGarvey went back to Washington, calling Rencke on his sat phone before boarding the commercial flight at Biloxi-Gulfport Airport to find out the latest in the search for the contractor. “This guy doesn’t exist,” Otto said, and he sounded frustrated.

  “But we know he does.”

  “Yeah,” Rencke had said. “Maybe I’m getting too old for this shit.”

  “He’s had years to devise his cover, but you’ve only had a couple of months to break it,” McGarvey said.

  He’d spent a good deal of time over those same weeks trying to think like their contractor, trying to get inside the man’s head, trying to figure out what motivated him, trying to work out his background, and the direction he was headed — had likely always headed. And he had come to a few conclusions, actually just probabilities, based on the notion: If I were in his business, what would I do? Where would I live? How would my life be structured?

  “He probably doesn’t live in the States,” he said.

  “Eric thinks so too, but we don’t have any indicators,” Rencke said.

  “Just bear with me. If he lived here he might have made mistakes. He’d likely to be in some database somewhere. City taxes, car registration, something. The only reason I think that he doesn’t live here is because he killed a teacher in San Francisco for an identity to get into the power plant.”

  “He wouldn’t crap in his own nest.”

  “Something like that. So where does he live?” McGarvey asked. “Not in some Third World country. He’s doing this work for what’s probably a great deal of money, which means he likes his comforts.”

  “I’m working Switzerland, the Channel Islands, the Caymans, honest injun.”

  “Let’s forget the money trail for a moment. Gail said the clerk at the Southern Power reception desk told her that the man had an English accent, but not Australian. Right now South Africa seems the most likely.”

  “I’ve come up with nothing from SADF records.”

  “Computer records,” McGarvey said. “I’m betting that this guy got out of the service before the South African military went digital.”

  “Shit,” Rencke said. “Good point, Mac. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “So where would a guy like that go to ground? Someplace civilized.”

  “Europe,” Rencke said. “With the immigrant problem, a Westerner with culture and money would get no hassles from the local authorities. Long as he kept his nose clean no one would give him a second look. Switzerland, Germany, France.”

  “Maybe France,” McGarvey said. “It’d be easy to get lost in Paris.”

  “It’s a start,” Rencke said. “But there’d have to be more.”

  “A woman. He wouldn’t live alone.”

  “She’d leave no traces.”

  “She might if she were bored,” McGarvey said.

  And Rencke saw it all at once, his frustration giving way to excitement. “Oh, wow, kemo sabe, you’re right. When this guy is at home, he’s really at home. With his lady twenty-four/seven. But when he gets an assignment he’d have to drop out of sight for a week or two, maybe for months at a time, and she would get bored. She’d want to do something to keep from going crazy.”

  “He would have warned her against getting too friendly, so whatever it is she does for pleasure will have to be very low-key. Maybe a garden club, maybe a tour guide or museum docent. If it’s Paris there’d have to be hundreds, probably thousands of such women.”

  “Who don’t socialize.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “I’m on it,” Rencke said. “In the meantime have you found anything useful down there?”

  “I think I know how he means to sabotage the rig, but he’ll have to get aboard to do it, and he’ll need some help.”

  “When are they heading out?”

  “Probably by the weekend, but they’re holding a news conference the day after tomorrow, on InterOil’s suggestion. See if you can come up with a list of who’ll be there.”

  And Rencke saw that, too. “You think that he’s going to try to get aboard. Reconnoiter?”

  “It’s something I might try.”

  “Do you think it’d be worth the risk?”

  McGarvey had thought about that too on the way back from the oil rig. There’d be only one reason for the man to take such a gamble, and that would in part depend on inside knowledge. “If the company plans on giving the media a guided tour he’d have to try it.”

  “That’d mean someone at InterOil was feeding him information.”

  “Find out what you can, but especially the names of everyone invited. And I want them vetted, all of them, including the cameramen and anyone else in the group.”

  “I’m on it,” Rencke said.

  * * *

  McGarvey found that it was impossible to relax on the flight up to Washington. He couldn’t get out of his mind how vulnerable even something so large as an oil exploration platform was. A few kilos of well-placed Semtex as shaped charges on two legs would do the job, and once they exploded nothing could stop the platform from capsizing and ending up on the bottom of the Gulf.

  A couple of operators could easily handle that task in fifteen minutes or less. In the meantime three or four others would round up the crew and technicians and herd them into the mess. But the biggest problem would be finding and destroying the oil rig’s single sideband radio used for communications with the company before a Mayday could be transmitted. Sat phones would present another problem, as would the crew and communications equipment aboard the tug.

  And it came to him that he’d missed something obvious, something beyond the possibility that the contractor would be coming aboard with the media; in fact the man might have no need to take such a risk, not if he’d already managed to place one of his operators aboard. Probably as a deckhand. Someone who had worked on an oil rig at some point in his career.

  It was late by the time he got back to Washington and cabbed it to his apartment in Georgetown, and he would forever remember that at this point he’d become a man in a hurry, and in some ways a man worried that he had been forgetting something important that could get a lot of people killed.

  Gail was in bed, but not asleep when he let himself in, and she got up, a shy expression in her eyes on her face, as if she was worried that he’d brought her bad news. She was wearing one of his shirts. “How’d it go?” she asked.

  “I found out how they’re going to sink the platform, but we might have caught a break,” McGarvey said, putting down his bag. And he knew just by lookin
g at her what she was thinking and why, but he didn’t want to go there, not yet. “We’re flying down tomorrow afternoon. Can you be ready by then?”

  “I’m packed,” she said, and she seemed to relax a little. “Why don’t you take a shower while I fix you something to eat, and we can talk.”

  And McGarvey hesitated, wondering for just that moment what he felt about her, or if in fact he’d redeveloped the ability to feel something about anyone after his wife’s assassination. Too soon, he wanted to say, and he wanted to turn around and walk out. But in the end he couldn’t.

  He went to her and took her in his arms. “After tonight we’re going to become a couple of professionals with a job to do. Nothing more. Understood?”

  Gail nodded.

  “I’ll take a shower, but forget the kitchen. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she said happily.

  “We can talk in the morning on the way down to the Farm.”

  * * *

  John Nowak, the new commandant of the CIA’s training facility at Camp Peary on the York River near Williamsburg, Virginia, was expecting McGarvey and had an escort at the main gate waiting to bring him and Gail down to the office. His was a new face to McGarvey, but according to Otto, morale at the Farm, which had taken a dive when Todd Van Buren and his wife Elizabeth were assassinated, was recovering.

  He was a short, rotund man in his late forties or early fifties, with a red jowly face and a broad smile; he was a man who obviously enjoyed what he was doing, and when McGarvey and Gail got out of the Porsche SUV he came out and dismissed the young officer in training escort, and shook their hands.

  “This is a great pleasure finally getting to meet you, Mr. Director,” he said effusively. He was dressed in camos, his boots bloused, a Beretta holstered across his chest. And his boots looked scuffed, well worn. Otto had said that appearances to the contrary Nowak could easily keep up with the youngest trainees; he’d been a top sergeant with the army’s Delta Force. “Mr. Rencke told me what you folks were in need of and we have everything ready for you. It just wants your approval before we pack.”

  “Transportation?” McGarvey asked. He wanted to like the man, but it was difficult. The only reason the Farm had a new commandant was because Todd and Liz were dead.